Con Artists or supportive service? (Other High Streets Companies)

Member Name: indigojade

Product:	Other High Streets Companies
Date:	23/07/01 (86 review reads)
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When I first decided to sell my home for the last 5 years I never thought it would involve the stress that it has over the past few weeks. It is common knowledge that amongst bereavement and divorce it is one of the top most stressful activities in life. Having moved in excess of 20 times throughout my life, I though it would be an easy process – I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The first step in selling your home is to invite potential sales agents into your home to give a valuation. This was a very easy step, although pretty nerve wracking in that you are wondering if your property will sell for a good price (more than you paid for it), and how quickly will it sell and so on.

I invited 5 agents to value my home and had some very different valuations; it is worth taking a look at other properties around you for sale, to gauge how much they are being sold for. There were a couple of reasons I chose Burchell Edwards as my estate agent, I had actually bought my house from them 5 years previously (they were then known as Cornerstone) and had found them to be effective, polite and efficient. They also sell many properties around this area, very quickly. I checked out their website, which appeared very up to date and well laid out. Although their valuation was the lowest one, I managed to persuade them into putting the house up for the price I wanted, although was told in no uncertain terms I wouldn’t sell it!

The valuation agent was very pleasant and gave some great advice on making the best of the house for potential viewers. Once I had decided on the agent, they came that afternoon and measured all the rooms and made note of all the features of the house, to include in the details to be sent to potential buyers. They then went away with these and had them typed up, they also contacted people on their database looking for 3 bed houses in this area. At this point I was given a contract to sign and an invoice to be paid on c
ompletion of the sale. The contract appeared pretty straightforward, if the house was not sold, or I decided to take the house off the market I would incur no charge – however if I sold the house to anyone (either introduced by the agent or otherwise) within 28 days of taking the house off the market I would have to pay their bill in full. The charge for their services was £1051 inc. VAT.

This all happened on the Wednesday, pretty stress free so far. The following day I received a phone call to make appointments for viewing. I didn’t feel ready for this, but made the appointments anyway, the estate agent did offer to show the viewers around, but I declined feeling I could show the advantages of my house off better than they could.

The viewings were pretty nerve racking; you do try and gauge the potential response from the viewers, with little or no success in most cases. Our first viewer was downright rude and unpleasant, criticizing the décor and other aspects of the house. He told me in no uncertain terms, the house was definitely NOT what they were looking for; wanting something bigger and better, then they left. Within 20 minutes the couple had made an offer! Although it was a pretty poor offer almost £10,000 below the asking price. Naturally the agent advised us to decline – which I did. Over the next few days the board went up outside the house, and we had 7 viewings booked to show the house. It appeared that Burchell Edwards were really pushing our house, the house appeared in the local paper, as well as on their website, a very efficient business indeed. The first chap came back with another offer – this was definitely his last offer, there would be no more that would be it. I turned his offer down, I know you shouldn’t let personal feelings get in the way, but I didn’t like him at all and didn’t want to sell to him! A few days later the same man made another offer, this time more realistic, but
still not what I wanted to sell for. The estate agent did put some pressure on me to accept, but I still declined, after all the house had only been on the market less than a week. Yet again the same man came back with an offer £500 below the asking price. Very pleased with myself for holding out I accepted, well there has to be some give and take. The surveys and searches were commenced, the sold signs went up and everything appeared to be going smoothly. I started to wonder what all the fuss about moving home was about – it had been pretty easy so far; I certainly didn’t feel that the agents had worked for their fee!

Disaster struck 2 weeks before we had planned to move, my buyers buyer had pulled out of the sale, and the chain collapsed. The estate agents were excellent they immediately spun into action, arranging 8 viewings in 2 days. From these 8 viewings I had 2 offers which were acceptable; the trouble was which one to accept. The estate agents were again very helpful in this decision, checking out both of the potential buyers and their chains status. I accepted an offer and sat back and waited for the surveys and searches to commence once again. The house I wanted to buy was actually under repossession and the deadline for that was drawing very near, the agents were very aware of the speed with which things needed to be completed and were constantly on the telephone to various agencies.

Again disaster struck, the people buying my house couldn’t get their mortgage. The building society had refused to proceed. This threw me into complete turmoil, why wouldn’t they proceed? What was wrong with the house? What was going to happen to the house I wanted? I began to feel I should take my house off the market and stay put. Again all the staff at Burchell Edwards were fantastic, they reassured me that it was nothing to do with the house, but with the buyer financial status. Within 2 days I again had another offer on the tab
le. However during this time, it appeared that the previous buyers were able to proceed with the sale, and everything was back on track again.

Throughout the whole process, I have found Burchell Edwards to be most efficient, polite and supportive at a difficult time. I have never had to chase them up about viewers, publicity or offers; they have always been at the end of the telephone – sometimes several times a day. I can whole heartedly say that they have earned every penny of their fee, even though it is rather on the high side, compared to other estate agents around this area.

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